


We'll Do It Together (As Ever)

by SolarMorrigan



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Crime Fighting AU, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slight Role Reversal, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 08:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18634165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Bond and Q fight crime; crime fights back. Being superpowered members of a team of vigilantes does have its downsides





	We'll Do It Together (As Ever)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Crime fighting AU" square for AU April at the MI6 Cafe! I turned it into a superhero AU, because... that is what I tend to do. I'm not entirely sure how much of this sounds at all reasonable and I don't think it's really going anywhere, but it was fun to write and I hope it's entertaining to read!

Q hissed and Bond grimaced in sympathy as he helped to ease Q’s gauntlets over his hands.

“This is the worst of it, right?” Bond asked with thinly veiled suspicion.

“Yes, this is it,” Q said quickly, his attention already diverted as he reached for the singed front of Bond’s outfit. “James–”

“Ah, ah.” Bond grabbed Q by the wrist to still him, well above the angry red burns visible on the backs of his hands. “Let me treat your hands, Q.”

“Minor burns, I can still move them, they’re just–” Q broke off with another hiss, glaring over at Bond when he brushed a featherlight fingertip over the damage in question. “ _sore_ , at the moment. What about _you?”_

“I’m fine,” Bond said sternly. “I heal quickly, you don’t.”

“That’s just the problem! I can count on one hand the amount of times you’ve sustained an injury that lasted more than five minutes–”

“A hand that is _injured,_ Q. Like your other hand, which is also injured! For the love of God, will you just let me put some burn cream on them?”

“But your–”

Bond growled, dropping Q’s hand to jerk up the front of his shirt. There were a few unpleasant-looking blisters clustered between his ribs, the surrounding skin red and irritated, but the burn was significantly smaller than it had been when sustained less than an hour ago. In another hour, it was likely there would be nothing left of it at all.

“I’m _fine_ , Q,” Bond insisted. “Stop worrying about me for five minutes, will you?”

It was a moment before Q responded. “He got away, James,” he said softly.

“Q…”

“He shoots bloody electricity. He can hurt you and my tech is useless against someone who can control the electrical current running through it and _he got away.”_

Bond couldn’t refute this; though the plot had been foiled, the villain had escaped – some newcomer with electrokinesis, an unfortunate blond dye job, and an unnerving manic glint in his eye. None of them had been seriously injured, though Eve had sustained a few minor electrical burns and Q had been burned not by electricity—his outfit was thoroughly insulated against shocks from his own equipment—but by the heat of the melted componentry in his gauntlets. Bond had taken quite a hit from the villain, that much he would admit, but it took more than a jolt to slow him down – not that Q seemed ready to acknowledge that.

Releasing the edge of his shirt, Bond brought his hands up to cup Q’s face, running his thumbs over the red indents left by goggles only recently removed. “We know what we’re up against now. We’ll get him next time,” Bond promised.

Q sighed, leaning into Bond’s touch. “I don’t like being useless, James. I especially don’t like it when you’re vulnerable.”

“I’m hardly _vulnerable_ , Q,” Bond scoffed, injecting some humor into his voice. “I’m bulletproof, remember?”

“Bullet _resistant,”_ Q corrected immediately. “You’re not invulnerable just because you embody the lyrics of a Daft Punk song.”

The look Bond was sending Q must have been just the brand of unimpressed he liked seeing the most, because the ghost of a smile crossed Q’s face. “Harder, better, faster, stronger?” Q asked, faintly teasing.

Bond shook his head, refusing to acknowledge the joke and instead leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of Q’s mouth, then another to his temple. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “And you’re never useless.”

It was a thin sort of reassurance, vague at best, but Q allowed Bond to pull him in, turning to press his lips to the curve of Bond’s jaw, but pulling back with startled noise of discomfort when Bond’s hand grazed the back of his neck. Bond blinked at Q, the suspicion rapidly returning to his gaze as Q chewed the corner of his lip sheepishly.

“I may not have been entirely forthcoming with which parts of my equipment melted,” Q admitted.

Bond sighed.

The base had a room set up for actual medical treatment that would have been a far preferable setting, but Q tended to retreat to his lab without much thought – he was most comfortable there, and so Bond made do. The lights in the lab were bright enough, at least, and it was easy enough to see what he was doing once he’d gotten Q to bare all of his burns (not many, but more than he’d initially let on). Q was still while Bond worked, something he wasn’t very often, and it almost startled Bond when the screen mounted on the wall behind him clicked on.

It flicked through channels at Q’s technopathic whim until it landed on the news; Bond couldn’t see the screen, but he could hear the familiar voices of the newscasters going over the events of the afternoon, talking more about property damage and injury than about the catastrophe that had been averted by “the band of mad vigilantes” that was apparently “terrorizing” the city.

That was gratitude for you.

“I don’t know why you bother with the news,” Bond said as he smoothed burn cream over the backs of Q’s hands. “You’re capable of finding much better information out there than that drivel.”

“I’m working on it,” Q murmured, and Bond realized his stillness was likely the result of split focus, if his mind was already ensconced in his databases and research. “I suppose I just wanted to see if anything new had happened.”

“He’s unlikely to do anything again so soon. We’re not the only ones who sustained damage,” Bond reminded Q.

Q hummed, and the screen shut off, leaving Bond’s ears buzzing with the sudden lack of noise.

“I suppose you’ll have to remake those, then,” Bond said, nodding his head towards the destroyed gauntlets lying on the lab table.

“Unfortunately. I have extra components lying around, but I’ll have to assemble from scratch,” Q sighed.

It _was_ unfortunate; Q had designed all of the equipment for their team, from communications devices to high-tech weaponry, but Bond always accused him of keeping the best for himself, and the gauntlets were a particular favorite. They had a taser function, they contained lock picks and a few other small tools, Bond had seen Q magnetize them on at least one occasion, and they were also designed to act as functional brass knuckles. Though Bond couldn’t have said from experience, it was evident from some of the criminals who had decided the skinny-looking technopath would be easiest to take down in a fight (and perhaps he was an easier target than the rest of the team, but that didn’t say much when the rest of the team was composed of people with powers leaning more towards ones like Bond’s enhanced physical condition) that the gauntlets put quite an edge on Q’s already not to be discounted fighting abilities.

He had other gadgets, of course, but Bond did have a fondness for the gauntlets – and Q seemed to, as well, for as many times as he’d revised and added to their functions.

“Perhaps you can put those miniature explosives in your next pair,” Bond suggested.

Q rolled his eyes. “I’m not putting anything explosive that near to my _hands.”_

“Oh, so now you’re worried about your hands?” Bond asked dryly, pulling back to return the cap to the tube of burn cream.

“I could tell it wasn’t serious, you act as if I’ve never been burned before–”

_“You_ act as if you’ve never been burned before–”

“–and I was a little more worried about you,” Q snapped. “How is _your_ burn doing?”

“It’s fine, Q,” Bond insisted.

Unmoved, Q continued to stare at Bond, one brow raised, until Bond sighed and relented. He lifted the edge of his shirt once more, giving Q another good look at the burn. Now that the most serious parts of the damage had been repaired, the rest of the injury was healing rapidly; the blisters had already disappeared, and much of the skin was more pink than red.

Q gave his own sigh, relieved. “I don’t mean to doubt you. I just worry you don’t have a good gauge of what constitutes a serious injury,” Q said, utterly ignoring the pointed look Bond was shooting at his hands. “I’m still not sure how we’re supposed to catch that bastard. It’s not like I can be of any use…”

“You know, Q,” Bond said thoughtfully, “not all technology runs on electricity.”

“I–” Q began, pausing. “Hm.”

“You _are_ always going on about alternative energy.”

“That’s not quite what I mean, but – oh, but there’s an idea…” Q hummed rising from his seat on his workbench and turning unerringly towards the table piled high with blueprints and notes.

Bond considered, perhaps, that he ought to have waited until tomorrow to help give Q this epiphany; he’d only wanted to prevent Q from feeling useless – but there were other ways to distract him, Bond knew.

“No, no,” Bond rose from the workbench and caught Q around the middle, “give your poor hands a rest for the evening, will you?”

“I just want to–”

“Yes, and if I let you go do what you just want to, you’ll be here until dawn, aggravating all your burns. Why don’t you let me take you home instead, and I’ll give you something _else_ to focus on?” Bond suggested, spreading his broad hands on Q’s hips, so there could be no mistaking his meaning.

“And how, exactly, would that be resting my hands?” Q asked, though there was interest sparking in his eyes when he peered over his shoulder at Bond.

Bond lowered his mouth to the bared curve of Q’s throat, careful to avoid the burn at the back of his neck. “If you can avoid touching,” Bond murmured into his skin, “I will be sure to reward you _very_ thoroughly.”

Q shivered, his hands coming up to rest gingerly over Bond’s where they were still splayed possessively over his hips. “I think I could be persuaded to give it a try.”

“Good,” Bond said, pressing a kiss to the back of Q’s ear before speaking against the sensitive curve of it. “Come back tomorrow and be brilliant then. Tonight, just let me take care of you.”

Sighing, this time pleased rather than exasperated, only faking being put out by the request, Q nodded. “Alright, James. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This actually started out as an _entirely_ different story, but it kinda became this. I'm happy with it, but a little disappointed I didn't have an excuse to fit in the horribly tacky superhero names I decided on for Bond and Q
> 
> (They were Gladiator and Circuit Breaker, respectively. If you wanted to know. Even if you didn't, you know now.)
> 
> Also posted on [Tumblr!](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/184508514368/well-do-it-together-as-ever-james-bond%22)


End file.
